China hopes 'individual incidents' won't affect India ties

Both countries have exchanges on all levels and all fields, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu told a media briefing, when asked whether the bilateral ties were back on track as two Indian Ministers -- Kamal Nath and Kapil Sibal -- had a series of meetings with their Chinese counterparts and other officials here during the past few days.

"Some of the issues you mentioned are due to misunderstanding or miscommunication," the spokesperson said in response to a question about tensions between the two countries over reports of presence of Chinese troops in Gilgit-Baltistan area of PoK and denial of visa to Northern Area Commander Lt Gen B S Jaswal to take part in talks here.
"From the Chinese point of view we believe that China and India are neighbours and two emerging powers. Strengthening cooperation and building mutual trust is beneficial to the two peoples and also conducive for world peace and development," she said.

Actually China and India have exchanges at all levels and all fields, Jiang said. "Hope individual incidents will not affect the overall interest of development of China-India relations," she said.

Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath, who is here on a visit, met a host of Chinese officials, heads of top investing firms as well as the highway constructing companies canvassing for active Chinese investment and participation in highway projects all over India, including the border areas.

After his meetings here yesterday, including with his counterpart Li Shenglin, Nath today took part in a high- profile event attended by top Chinese investors and highway construction companies in the coastal city of Tianjin to scout for the Chinese participation in Indian road building.

Similarly, Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal, who attended the Summer Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) in Tianjin this week, met his Chinese counterpart Yuan Guiren yesterday and told him about India's plans to introduce Chinese language as part of CBSC syllabus.

He also sought Chinese cooperation in training about 200 Indian teachers to help them teach the language as a subject.

Also, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa made a strong pitch for more FDI in his state during a visit to Tianjin and Beijing to take part in the WEF.

Indian officials say that active engagements of the Indian Ministers show that New Delhi, while asserting its stand on its core concerns in ties with Beijing, continues its close engagement with China to improve the relations in the field of trade.

Besides conveying its concerns to Beijing over reports of presence of Chinese troops in Gilgit-Baltistan area of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, India called off defence exchanges with China following denial of visa to Jaswal.